What makes our China Photo Tour so special

Harry Fisch

On this China Photo Tour we will be working with both posed and unposed photo shoots, the key to great photography is getting up close and personal. It might be outside the normal comfort zone but your photography will definitely benefit from it.

Nomad expedition’s China Photo Tour is probably one of the most exciting in our repertoire, and it’s one of my personal favorites. This is because I think it gives a phenomenal opportunity to work with portraits in one of the most photographically interesting ways possible – during the festival season of the southern tribes of China.

This China photo tour was designed around people photography but also designed with intent to visit the real China. It is a tour through the land of the southern tribes – a people who are inseparable from their land and living a culture that has been passed down through generations spanning centuries. They are a living cultural heritage monument, and this photo tour gives you the opportunity to tell that story with your art.

China tribal areas areas: fascinating and in constant motion.

When you are working with both posed and unposed photo shoots, the key to great photography is getting up close and personal. It might be outside the normal comfort zone but your photography will definitely benefit from it. Nomad’s China photography tour provides the opportunity to meet, break bread with, and document the Miao, Dong, Shui, Buyi, Ge, and Yi ethnic tribes.

We are not speaking of an individual here or there. These opportunities are arranged with the idea of storytelling and photography being inexorably tied. The path follows the festivals as they go off one by one; each tribe celebrates in a different way and with different themes from the great lions festival, to the golden phoenix and the mighty dragon. It’s a cornucopia of life and dance and music, with the tribes people a throng of colorfully embroidered clothing and wild traditional masks.

But this is where you’ll need to be prepared for low light photographic conditions.

As many chances as there are to photograph the action of these festivals as they happen, this china photo tour also plans many of its shoots with real people of the towns for posed portrait work. Nomad always encourages these events, to help a photograph learn to get as close as necessary to really capture the nuances and gravity in a person’s expression.

The subjects will vary from monks to craftsman to farmers, all locals, all real. The backdrop is the precious green and silver landscape that has sustained their culture as long as it’s been alive, whether it is the rice steppe terraces of Longji, the great mountains of Ping An, or the verdant valley of that great serpentine Li river. Photographically speaking, you couldn’t ask for a set up more perfect than that.

The grand finale is the cormorant fishermen of Guilin. As the first fishing boats, narrow as shark fins go cutting out into the still morning water, the fishermen raise their oil lamps and their giant sea birds sit calmly and iconically poised on the prows of the ships. We raft out with them to photograph this timeless practice that is still keeps harmony between man, bird, and the wide, green river.

It was an honor to have this tour named Best 2016 China Photo Tour by Travel Babbo.

Harry Fisch, polyglot and originally a lawyer and businessman, has been a photographer for more years than he cares to remember. He has photographically documented more than 27 countries through which he has traveled, concentrating since 2002, on Asia, especially Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal and India.

Winner of the 2012 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO CONTEST, and later disqualified, he has also been a finalist in the 2013 SONY WORLD PHOTO AWARDS and selected in 2010 by Photoespaña—possibly the most prestigious Spanish photographic event—in the section “Discoveries”. His work has been published among other photography magazines in “La lettre de la photographie”, which was nominated best Blog of 2011 by the prestigious magazine LIFE.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Travel arrangements, logistics, stocks, supports and all aspect of insurance, in accordance with current spanish legislation, as all related to the activity of the Travel Agent is sole responsability of Trekking y Aventure, Official Travel Agency No. c.i.ma 1038. Nomad Photo Expeditions is a brand that belongs to Elite Line SL, a company based in Madrid, Spain. Marqués de Urquijo, 30.